THE NEW CONGRESS: THE SENATE

THE NEW CONGRESS: THE SENATE; New Chief of Judiciary Panel May Find an Early Test With Clinton

By NEIL A. LEWIS,

Published: November 18, 1994

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17—
Senator Orrin G. Hatch will soon be thrust into the intense ideological battle over how aggressive the Republicans should be in using their new Congressional majority to shape areas like the Federal judiciary, spending on crime and civil rights policy.

Mr. Hatch, a Utah Republican who easily won re-election last week, is in line to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the stage on which many of the nation's contentious social issues are debated. Federal judicial appointments also take the spotlight there, and one prospective nomination, that of Peter B. Edelman, a prominent liberal former law professor, could prove an early source of friction between the Senator and President Clinton.

Although Mr. Hatch's conservative credentials are undisputed, Administration officials and Republican colleagues expect that he will be far less confrontational with the White House than Senator Jesse Helms, for example, the North Carolina Republican who has already signaled his intention to use the chairmanship of the Foreign Relations Committee to challenge the President on a broad scale.

But Mr. Hatch said in an interview that he hoped to enact a new crime bill that would reverse the thrust of the one enacted this year, which designated for social programs $7 billion of its $30 billion in Federal spending. His other priority, he said, is to enact three constitutional amendments: one requiring a balanced Federal budget, another allowing the President line-item vetoes, and the third prohibiting the Government from requiring states to impose costly rules without providing the money to pay for them.

An ideological test on judicial nominations could come early. Mr. Hatch said in an interview that the President could face a major confirmation battle if he nominated Mr. Edelman, counselor to the Department of Health and Human Services, to an especially influential appeals court. The fear, said the chairman-in-waiting, is that Mr. Edelman, a longtime friend of Mr. Clinton and his wife, Hillary, might be just the kind of judge that conservatives routinely decry: the kind they see as legislating from the bench.

"There's a lot of heartburn over that one," Mr. Hatch said. "Our people have been through his writings, and they certainly raise the question of whether he understands the proper role of a judge."

Mr. Hatch stopped short of saying he would oppose the nomination of Mr. Edelman, who Administration officials say is Mr. Clinton's choice for a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered second in importance only to the Supreme Court within the Federal judiciary.

Abner J. Mikva, the White House counsel, would not discuss whether the President intended to name Mr. Edelman to the appeals court. But he did say he was dismayed that Senator Hatch would characterize Mr. Edelman as someone who would be inclined to be a judicial legislator.

"Orrin Hatch has been decent and fair, and I would hope that those qualities would extend to someone like Peter Edelman were he to be nominated," Mr. Mikva said. "From what I know of Mr. Edelman -- and I know him well -- he certainly understands that judges are not supposed to legislate from the bench."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Delaware Democrat who will soon relinquish the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, said he believed that Mr. Hatch would face strong pressures from the right wing of the Republican Party "to try and bring the house down."

Mr. Biden said that when the situation was the precise reverse -- with the Democrats controlling the Senate and the Republicans the White House -- most judicial nominations were easily approved.

"He'll probably do what we did," Mr. Biden said, "in taking on nominees when we found them too far to the right. He'll probably take on those he thinks are too far to the left."

Mr. Hatch acknowledged the pressures he will encounter. "I had lots of pressure on me when I was in the minority," he said, "and you can imagine the pressure will increase many times, because there are some groups that don't want to compromise on anything."

Thomas Jipping, who monitors judicial selection for the conservative Free Congress Foundation, said in an interview that his group would closely watch Mr. Hatch's performance. He said the Senator and other Republicans had explained that they had not resisted the President's judicial nominations until now because their power was limited as a minority. "Well," Mr. Jipping said, "they're the majority now."

Photo: Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah had plenty of time on Wednesday to confer with his staff in Salt Lake City. Come January, when he becomes chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the schedule gets more hectic. (Tom Smart for The New York Times)